Respect

I'm surprised by some of the comments here. I'm white, I went to see the movie this weekend, and I thought it was great.

Yes, there are some white characters that treat our heroes horribly. But that rang true for me. This was 1974 Philedelphia, after all. And racism is a horrid part of our past.

But all the characters, even our heroes, are flawed. And there are a couple African American characters who are more evil then any of the white characters are.

Furthermore, the entire point of the movie is that pride is something you have to earn. Before you can be proud of yourself, you have to earn it. This applies to everyone, no matter what your background.

Go see this movie for yourself and make up your own mind. Personally, I found it inspiring and well worth watching.

Pride is MUCH better than the 2.6 rating - yes, it does wear its heart firmly on its sleeve, but a turkey it most definitely is not. We loved Akeelah and the Bee last year and would put this in the same sense of journey: the ad campaign and tag line should be:"The waves they created changed their world forever..."

It does what sport movies should do - gives you the training, the sport, the lift. Of course you know the step by step play but that doesn't alter the fact that this is watchable.

I'm afraid I don't get the objections on ground of race - I would imagine being poor, black, and impoverished and the first in my sport in 1974 would be realistically unbelievably tough.

If you like your films to be about values - then is is definitely worth the view.

IMDb voters should be ashamed - this is not the worst film of all time by a long shot - or all our hearts dead?

Ignore the vote - and view with an open heart - we found it decent, inspiring, and all together a satisfying view.

I am interested to know how involved Coach Ellis was with this film. I am an African-American swimming coach as well; and I am delighted to see Black swimming get this kind of exposure. However, there were some technical aspects of the film relative to the swimming (the order of events, the starter's pistol, the starters command, the coaching instructions) that were not quite accurate.

Also, I thought Cheney State was a historically Black college. How was he the only Black swimmer on the team? I swam on a predominantly Black team during that era. We visited all-white venues. I do not remember any hostility. And we were traveling south of the Philadelphia area. I guess the tension was fictional and for theatrical purposes.

Lastly, the pulling at the heartstrings and tears were a little over the top. I guess the success of Oprah and chick flicks is precipitating this type of genre. I would have appreciated Bernie Mack's humor coming out a little more to balance the crying.

It's obvious that a lot of people giving PRIDE a "1" are reacting to the trailers and radio ads that make this movie come off as a "black vs. white" thang. In reality, the movie it self is much more nuanced and filled with universal themes. It's been said that the achievement in sport by people of color is responsible more than anything to bring a semblance of equality in America. In sports, it's mathematical. A strike is a strike, a touchdown's a touchdown no matter who throws it. PRIDE is worth supporting because it shines light on a real-life person who used sports to teach young kids there's a bigger world past the playground, and if you develop your talents you won't have to fall back on the race card to catch breaks. Pride is a solid sports flick with strong performances by all that will suffer because of some unimaginative and lazy marketing. If you like Terrence Howard or Bernie Mac or even Kimberly Elise, make this one worth your time. Otherwise, wait for the Mark Gastineau story.

The fact that this movie has a 3.7 rating on IMDb is ridiculous. I don't see how somebody could not like this movie. Why is racism in early 70s Philadelphia unbelievable? How are Terrence Howard and Tom Arnold not good in this movie? Terrence Howard as Jim Ellis is one of the most inspirational coaches in any movie I've ever seen. The script is better than some people say and every character is believable-some more than others-but regardless. From the start of the movie all the way to the end I was glued to the TV. Who cares if the movie is "predictable": it's a TRUE story, OF COURSE IT'S PREDICTABLE. Some people are ridiculous. Anybody that gives this movie lower than 7 stars is obviously a complete moron. I'm giving this 10 stars because it damn well deserves it.

Anybody who reads this comments prior to seeing the movie, don't believe a word they say: they're all wrong.